The goat...

Jen keeps telling me I should post the story of the goat who visited our airport on Sunday. So here goes. On Sunday my instructor, Erin, showed up at the airport to fly with a student. When she got here, she discovered a goat hanging out behind the aviation building. Not wanting the goat to accidentally go through a propeller, she called security and told them about the goat. Security, not really having a clue, called the school's rodeo coach. The coach told them the goat didn't belong to the rodeo team, so there wasn't much they could do about it. Apparently satisfied with this answer, security called Erin back and relayed the message. Erin, however, had the sense to realize that this couldn't be the end of the story, because there would still be a goat roaming the airport. And that's bad. So she told security to call animal control and have them escort the goat off the airport. Security made the call, but animal control said they didn't do animal pickups on weekends unless it was a matter of life or death. Security passed this info on to Erin who insisted that the goat needed to be removed from the airport. Frustrated, she then decided to go on her flight and let someone else deal with the goat.

Upon Erin's return to the airport from her flight, she didn't see the goat around, so she asked Steven (student worker at the airport who happened to be working at the time) what had happened to it. Steven told her that the sheriff had come and the two of them had chased the goat around in the sheriff's car for a while, trying unsuccessfully to catch it. The sheriff had eventually given up and left and, since the goat wasn't roaming around anywhere, the problem had apparently resolved itself. So Erin went to get in her car, when all of a sudden, she heard a telltale bleating. Sure enough, the goat had been hiding behind the aviation building. It was still on the airport and, according to Erin, was very stinky and had a broken jaw and a huge abscess where the break was. Erin called security again and told them the goat was still roaming about, but at this point the security worker was someone who struggled to understand english and nothing wound up being done about the goat. So Erin decided to take matters into her own hands. She called one of the rodeo guys and asked if he could help. He showed up with some rope and another rodeo guy, and they decided they'd rope this goat and stick it out in the desert as "coyote bait." They were hesitant, though, because roping an animal that doesn't belong to you is considered cattle rustling, and they take that sort of thing pretty seriously in these parts. But, in the end, they did rope the goat and take it away. And that's the goat story, as I originally told it to Jen yesterday.

Here's the update Erin shared with me this morning. Right after I left Erin's office yesterday morning, she got a call from security, letting her know animal control was here for the goat. Erin told them that she's gotten some rodeo guys to rope it and remove it for her, and apparently the rodeo coach is now in trouble for it, despite animal control's unwillingness to do their part to fix the problem until 24 hours after the fact.

P.S. In the aviation world there are these things we call notams. "Notams" is a shortened form of "notices to airmen" and that's basically what they are. Notams cover a pretty good range of topics. There could be a notam telling us that a radio navigation station isn't working, or that there's an unmanned rocket zooming around the vicinity of our destination airport (this one actually happened to me on Saturday). Part of our preflight work involves checking the notams to make sure there are no factors that will hinder or endanger our flight. One of the current notams that's been popping up for the last week or so, states that the airport in Bisbee is unsafe due to loose cattle. Apparently, we should be thankful that all we had was a solitary goat.

Relearning to land...

I just got home from a local solo. I went up and practiced chandelles a bit, but I really wanted to focus on my landings, so I spent alot of the time just doing touch-and-gos. Thanks to the bad landing at BDI last semester and forcing myself over there solo when I really wasn't comfortable with it, I've gotten myself to a point where flaring freaks me out pretty bad. I made myself do 5 landings today, though, and by my final landing I got back to feeling like I know what I'm doing in a cockpit. I talked to Shana (student worker in the aviation dept.) for a minute after I shut down the plane, and she assured me it's normal to have to relearn some things when you've gone a while without flying much. Hopefully, I'm back on track now, or at least closer than I was a week ago.

My wife

Here are just a few of the things that make my wife the sweetest woman imaginable:

-She brings me home treats from work like oranges and blueberry muffins.
-She gets excited about cooking meals for me whenever she gets a chance.
-She gets excited about making coffee for me pretty much anytime I want it.
-She has endless patience and actually listens when I transform into Super Nerd and go on and on about nerd things (the Scarlet Spider and his ultra-rare KB exclusive action figure from the mid-90's, for instance).
-She can't sleep unless I'm in bed next to her.
-She has the biggest heart out of anyone I've ever met.
-She doesn't complain when I have to schedule a flight during our together time, even though I know she misses me a ton during the week.
-She misses me a ton during the week.
-She's strong about the things I need her to be strong about.
-She has a giggle that makes my heart soar, every single time.

Those are the reasons I can list off the top of my head. I'm sure others will come to me later, but someone is eager to read this post, so I'll call it good.

It's been a hard couple of days for me, emotionally, though I can't really say why. Something's just been stealing the wind out of my sails. That being the case, I find myself full of self-doubt. I took my first real test in instrument class this afternoon, and I'm reasonably certain I'm not going to be happy with my grade when I get it back. After several weeks of telling people that instrument class is hard, I'm finally believing it, myself. And thanks to my already being down in the dumps, I can't help wondering if I'm really cut out for aviation. I feel like it's just slowly becoming too big for me, like I've gotten as far as I'm going to be able to and at the end of the semester I'll just be one more loser who gets weeded out of the program by his own ignorance.

On top of that, I just visited my old Livejournal for the sake of catching up on my friends page, and noticed that a friend of mine is pregnant. That isn't necessarily remarkable in and of itself. The thing is, I've "known" (never met her in real life) this girl since she was about 14, and now she's married and expecting her first child. (Not to mention Robyn is pregnant again, despite her being with Levi in Madang PNG.) And here I sit in Buttcrack, AZ, with no job, doubting that I'm even smart enough to successfully keep pursuing my pilot goal and wondering if Jen and me are ever going to actually have any children of our own. I want to. God help me, I want so badly to have a child with my wife. But is it ever going to be the right time? Is it in the Plan? Or is it just one more thing that we'll struggle not to be envious about when we look at the "normal life" people around us?

So yeah. That's about how I'm feeling today.

Airborne...

I finally got back up in the air this morning. It was good. I learned how to do a lazy 8, but they're really hard, so it's going to take some time to develop the finesse I need. At least I can go out and practice them solo just about whenever I feel like it. Thank God for that private pilot certificate.

I got my quiz back in instrument ground class yesterday. Far as I know, I had the highest score in the class. I say that not to brag, but to testify that surely God is with me in this. Without His provision of wisdom and ability, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing here. There are 3 guys in the class who were also in the class last semester. This is their second go at it, and I still had the high score on the quiz. If that's not God's enabling, I don't know what is. Awesome.

Grounded

Today was another day without flight, since we got a bit more snow last night, and there's still snow and ice on the runway and planes from yesterday. According to Jen's coworker, we're supposed to get more snow tomorrow and Thursday, which may well keep me grounded for the rest of the week. Erin and I have been trying to fly a cross-country to Deming, NM for a few weeks now, but something keeps coming up to keep us from meeting that goal. On the bright side, I have FTD requirements I need to meet, so these no-fly days aren't a total waste. Just feels like they are.

Snow job...

Believe it or not, we had a snow day today at school. Jen and I woke up to find several inches of snow on the ground. Flying was out, since the runway was buried and the planes were iced over, so Erin and I met in her office for some briefing. The whole time we were talking, Erin kept getting calls from other instructors and students and the chief and assistant chief flight instructors. Finally, about halfway through our time, she got the official word that school had been cancelled for the day. So we wrapped up our brief, and I walked outside to find Jenny waiting for me. She was very excited, both about the snow (she loves it for some reason) and her unexpected day off work. We walked around campus and took some pictures, then came back home, changed into our pajamas, and drank cocoa. At 10, we watched Price is Right then I made some popcorn in our new stovetop popper (Target; $35 marked down to $8), and we ate corn and played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. All told, it's been a great snow day. Thank God for such an unexpected gift.

P.S. Before I left Erin's office this morning, I asked if they have snow plows here, thinking the school might have one. She looked at me and, totally serious, replied, "I think there's one in Bisbee." Priceless!

Ignoring signs...?

And here's the final update on my quest for a local solo today. After class I went to the briefing room to see if there was a key for a plane there for me to take. And there was. Granted, it was 2214K and 2214K is a piece of junk, but by that point I was just happy to have my grubby hands on a key. So I went out to preflight 14K. Quarter of the way through my inspection, I opened the right side engine cowling to make sure there was oil and the P-lead was connected to the right magneto... And I heard a cling. That's not usually a good sound to hear during a preflight, and this instance was no exception. So I looked on the ground to see what, exactly, had just fallen off my plane, and I discover it's one of the pins that holds the cowling closed. The washer that holds the pin on the cowling cover, had mysteriously vanished and the pin had simply fallen off the moment some unsuspecting yutz (in this case, me) opened the cowling. My theory is that someone was responsible for the problem, then just closed the cowling back to leave it for the next guy (in this case, me) to deal with. Well, it worked like a charm. I took the pin to Erin and let her tell the mechanics about it. Then I went to see if there were any other planes available. Praise the Lord, my old favorite 2143Y was waiting for me! Well, I eagerly preflighted 43Y and began my taxi to the end of the runway. The instant I taxied onto the taxiway and the sun hit my windscreen, it became painfully clear to me that my windscreen was filthy. Now I should have just taxied back to the ramp, tied the plane back down, and gone home in defeat. But that's just not my style. So I did my run-up, taxied onto the runway, and took off. No problems there. I went out into the practice area and worked on my chandelles a bit. No problems there. Then I decided to head over to Bisbee Douglas International to do a few touch-and-go's. That's when things really started to go south. See, on one of the last flights I made with Erin before my private pilot check ride, I attempted a touch-and-go at BDI. I wound up flaring really high, which is a fine way to drive your landing gear struts through the tops of your wings. Since then, going to BDI has tended to make me a little tense. But I decided today was the day when I would finally conquer my fear, so out to BDI I flew. I entered left downwind, flew base, flew final, then got ready to land. My approach was looking good: I was lined up with the runway, my speed was looking good, my altitude was bleeding away just about right. Everything was swell. Then I began my flare... and my heartrate began to increase dramatically. But I thought to myself, "No, no. I've got this." )Coincidentally, I made an off-hand comment once to a friend that my last words on this earth would be, "No, no. I've got this." Funny, huh? Heh.) Anyhow, I was about as deep into a flare as a guy can get without his wheels kissing runway, and I decided I was too high. And I proceeded to panic. Yep. Panic. The least helpful course of action in any conceivable situation. So I panicked. And I added every bit of power I had at my disposal, which was considerable at that point, considering my engine was idling for the landing. "Aww, forget this. I'm going around," I said to myself. Now, I've read aviation articles and such that have made mention of a funny little term called "the back side of the power curve." In case you're not familiar with this little nugget, it's the point at which your plane is incapable of taking back off, regardless of how much power you give it. It tends to happen, you guessed it, when you're about 1.3 seconds from touching down. So, sure enough, I went full throttle, hoping to perform a go-around. Instead, my plane put itself down on the runway all the quicker. Hey! I'm on the ground. I didn't flare too high! I didn't bust off my wheels! That's great! It was all going beautifully, despite my little bout with panic. I gumped my way into a nice, no-casualties landing! So then I noticed that I was edging off center line a bit, so I made a few small corrections with my rudder pedals. See, here's the thing about rudder pedals. They're attached to the bottom of the brake pedals, so you have to be real careful not to press the brakes when what you're trying to do is press the rudder pedals. If you only press one brake right after landing, say if you were trying to apply a little rudder to straighten out your roll and you accidentally pressed the wrong part of the pedal, why, you're half-likely to make a real mess of your roll. So, back to my story. I was on the ground, rolling along, and I decided to apply a small amount of rudder to keep myself straight. So I did. And then I noticed my rudder was acting a little funny, because now I was moving off the other way. So I applied opposite rudder to straighten up. Wouldn't you know it, my nose instantly started to point off the first way again. And that's about when I smelled the burning rubber. Yep. I was tapping on my brakes after going full throttle. That's a fantastic way to burn your brakes clean off. That thankfully wasn't the case this time. So, being the stiff-necked man that I am (I'd have made an excellent Hebrew), I decided I couldn't let a stupid runway beat me, so I took off and went around again for another landing. And I panicked on that one, so I took back off and went around for another one. And I panicked on that one, too. However, before you write me off as a lost cause, it should be noted that despite my panic, I did successfully land the plane all 3 times, without injury or property damage to anyone.

After all of that excitement, I decided to head back to the college and do a couple landings there, in an attempt to bandage my wounded dignity (read: pride). Just as I was about to enter the pattern at Cochise, I heard someone make a call that she was behind me and would be number 2 to land. Now this was a girl who, I think, already doesn't like me (it kills me when I think someone doesn't like me. Long story.), and I possibly just cut her off in the pattern. Granted, I hadn't seen her and she hadn't made a position call before I got in the pattern myself. Regardless, I decided on my next radio call that I would "bend" communications rules a bit and clip off a quick apology to this girl in case I cut her off. So that's what I did. And then I got to thinking maybe Mr. Perry heard me on the radio they keep in the flight building or something. That would be bad, since Mr. Perry is the chief flight instructor at the college. If he thinks you did something wrong, you'll probably know about it. I finished my flight and decided to call it a day. As I was putting my key back in the briefing room, I noticed that Mr. Perry was up in the plane with that girl I apologized to. So there's no question he heard me apologize. Now I just have to wait and see if I get chewed out tomorrow.

All told, I should have just given up on the solo, either when I couldn't get a plane, or when the cowling pin fell off, or when I noticed my windscreen was filthy. There's certainly a lesson in all of this. Too bad I've got that stiff neck.

Thwarted!

I just walked over to the aviation building to do my local solo before class. There were no planes for me to take, though. All the Pipers are being used during the flight period, so I'm going to try again in the time slot after class.

As I walked past the ramp to come back home, I heard a student complaining as he was preflighting 2143Y (the plane I always use) because when he flipped the master switch, the gyro didn't start to spool up. In fact, nothing happened at all. I guess Erin and I killed the battery this morning while we were trying to get that plane started. Guess that student's going to have to get a jump from the mechanics if he wants to fly today. Hopefully, that means I'll have a nice, juicy battery in my favorite plane tomorrow morning. Yes! :)

Catch-up Time

I guess it's been a little while since I really posted anything. So today will be catch-up time. I spent the weekend sick. I think it was the flu. I won't go into too much detail, but I felt pretty awful for a few days there. In the end, it made me cancel my cross-country to Deming, NM on Monday. Yesterday I was feeling much better, but I still wasn't sure if flying was the best idea, so Erin and I did some briefing and some FTD (simulator) time instead. I learned how to track outbound on bearings from NDBs (Non-Directional Beacons) on the FTD. This morning was supposed to be an actual local flight so I preflighted the plane and filed a flight plan and greased up the yoke. (It seems like no one else really bothers to grease the yokes in the planes, so when I get to them, they tend to sometimes stick pretty hard. That's not something you want when your goal is to make very small control corrections on your short final to land.) However, it was only 16F out this morning (-9C), and the plane's oil was almost silly putty, so the engine just wouldn't start. After maybe 5 minutes trying, we gave up and spent 36 minutes in the FTD instead. That's officially the longest I've ever spent in the FTD at one time, and I learned how to track inbound on bearings to NDBs. The value of learning how to track to and from NDBs is, at first glance, questionable. NDBs are slowly being phased out of aviation because they're a very old means of navigation and, frankly, technology has yielded better means of achieving the same ends. But the fact of the matter is that instrument approaches still use NDBs at times, so there's still a point to learning them. And, far's I'm concerned, they're kinda fun. Erin has given me the go-ahead to head back over to the ramp sometime today and go up for a local solo to begin meeting some solo requirements. And it apparently doesn't really matter when I go back, as long as it's during an actual flight period. Turns out alot of students have been no-showing for their flight times, so there should be a plane for me regardless of when I head back. And that's the news!

Cabbage is for eatin', not procreatin'!!!

I noticed an amazing coincidence as I was looking through our pictures from Christmas. This first picture is of my niece, Mady, holding her brand new Cabbage Patch Kid.

This second picture, meanwhile, is of my dad opening his brand new Cabbage Patch Kid. Now, it's a weird enough coincidence that they both got a Cabbage Patch doll. But if you look closer, you'll notice it's the exact same one!










No, seriously. It's the exact same doll. My dad is just getting it out of the box for Mady. :)

Today was my first time back behind the controls of a plane in roughly 7 weeks. This semester I'm working on my instrument rating and stage 1 of my commercial certificate. This morning was just a review of private pilot maneuvers, and tomorrow might be one, also. All in all, things went very well this morning. My landings were pretty good; that's the part that really matters to me. When I'm 2,000 feet above the ground and I stink up a steep turn, it's no problem; I can just try again. When I'm almost on the ground and I blow a landing, it 1)makes me a little tense, and 2)means I have to go through the whole traffic pattern again for another try at it. On top of those two reasons, if you recall from earlier posts, I really had trouble getting my landings right when I started my training. Any bad landing now sort of takes me back to that time, and I can get frustrated pretty easily, which doesn't help anything. But today, the landings were good, and I'm happy.

Erin gave me a little overview of the first part of this semester. I'm going to be doing a few cross-countries, almost right off the bat. I have a dual night X-C to Casa Grande, by way of Tucson. I have a dual day X-C to Deming, NM. And I have a couple solo day X-Cs, though I'm not totally sure where yet. I also found out that I'll be getting to keep my 6:45 time slot. That makes me very happy. I really didn't want that time when it was first given to me, but I've learned to love it, and I'd be upset if I had to give it up. I did find out this morning, though, that it's still dark here until about 7:10am, so preflighting the plane and having it ready for 6:45 isn't looking too likely until Spring. I guess I could always bring a flashlight. It would be good practice for night preflights.

Two pics

Here are two of the many pictures I just got done downloading and tweaking. One is me and Jen at O'Hare, waiting for our flight to Flint. The other is my mom and dad waiting with us at Flint Bishop, for our flight to O'Hare. As always, enjoy!

For what it's worth, Harlan was telling the truth. Our bags did eventually show up the next day, and the delivery guy had our phone number, so finding us wasn't too big a problem. When Jen opened the bags, she discovered little slips from the TSA, informing us that our bags had been randomly selected to be physically searched. Unfortunately for the TSA, one of the bags had been randomly selected to be our dirty laundry bag. So, the way I see it, we're just about even.

As Jen mentioned in her last post, we have over 100 pictures from our trip on our digital camera that I'll probably try to download sometime today.

Jen also mentioned lots of stories to tell, so I'll tell one now and get it out of the way. We were both pretty excited/anxious/nervous about getting back to Michigan, because Jen had never flown commercially before, and the last time I did it was 7 years ago. Our flight was scheduled to depart Tucson at 1:15, so we had decided we would get on the road for Tucson at 9:00. Well, our alarm went off at 7:00 that morning, and by 7:45 we were both ready to leave. We decided rather than sit and sweat and stare at each other until 9, we would just leave earlier. The drive was fine, no complications and no incidents worth mentioning. We stopped at the McDonald's near the airport to use the bathroom (and gather our wits before we actually arrived at the airport), and decided to eat a quick, light breakfast. We had been counting on a 2 hour 40 minute layover at O'Hare, so we'd have plenty of time to eat a real meal. As we were sitting in McDonald's, I got a call on my cell phone from the the American Airlines automated flight status update system (we'll call it Fred), letting us know our flight had been delayed by 20 minutes or something like that. So we left McD's and dumped our car at the airport Park 'N Save. After trying heroically to figure out the "self check-in" computer at American Airlines, we made our way to the security station outside our terminal. That went pretty well, until I forgot to take my cell phone off my belt before going through the metal detector. As I reached down to take the phone off my belt, it started ringing, and the number on my display was Fred's. Not wanting to upset the security guys by answering my cell phone in the middle of a security check, I silenced it and hoped Fred would leave a voice mail. I gave X-ray guy my cell phone, and he politely told me, "Go ahead. You get one more try." Holy freak-out! Thankfully, I made it through the second time, and it only took us a moment to find our gate. I checked my voice mail to see if Fred had left a message. He had, and our flight had been delayed again. All told, that flight wound up getting delayed about 6 times, and Fred helpfully called me every single time. It got to the point where the American Airlines people just read us a list of connecting flights in Chicago that we wouldn't be making. There were 6 or 7 flights on that list, and I confess it made me a little tense. Ours wasn't on it, but we'd be cutting it very close. Suddenly, eating at O'Hare wasn't looking likely, if we could even make our connecting flight at all.

We arrived at O'Hare about 20 minutes before our connecting flight was scheduled to depart. We'd decided on the plane that we would find a screen, find our gate, and book it there without even trying to eat or use the bathrooms. We found a screen pretty quickly and discovered that our ride to Flint had been delayed an hour. Suddenly, we had time to use the bathroom and eat. This was very good for us, since our quick breakfast at McDonald's had been our last meal, about 10 hours prior. We found our gate first, so we'd know where to head when it was time, then we roamed for a while, looking for something worth eating. We wound up at McDonald's again, and it was maybe the best McDonald's food we'd ever eaten. For dessert we grabbed some mini cinnamon rolls from Cinnabon and took them back to our gate to wait. And then our flight was delayed again. And again. And we didn't get off the ground in Chicago until almost 10:00. Jen's parents, sister (Barb), and brother-in-law (Matt) picked us up at Flint Bishop to take us back to Deckerville for the night. First, though, we had to make a run to Saginaw to drop off Barb and Matt. That was one of the longest drives in the history of the world. That's how it felt to me, anyway. We didn't end up getting to bed in Deckerville until 3am.

I think I'll stop the story there for now. Maybe I'll stick some pics on here later.